*A technical note on the photography: I had been using my 24-70mm f/2.8L lens for these photos. It’s a very nice (and very expensive) lens, so I’ve been trying to force myself to use it more often. Today, I shot with the 35mm f/1.4L lens, and yep. Still my favorite. Still the best I’ve ever owned. If you’re looking to invest in a Canon lens, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

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]]>Three and a half months in, breastfeeding is finally getting easier. I had a hard time with the other two kids too, but it wasn’t this difficult for this long. I filled a prescription for APNO when Calvin seven weeks old and that helped somewhat. Ibuprofin helped too, and while I did take the maximum recommended dosage every day for longer than I’d wanted to, I haven’t needed any for a couple of weeks now. Plus I haven’t cried from the pain lately, so there’s that. Hooray?

I’ve been watching a lot of television while nursing; the distraction is good.

“I don’t think I realized how much I would just be sitting on the couch.”

The soundtrack to these sessions as of late has been Funny Girl, Funny Face, and RuPaul’s Drag Race. I now find myself wanting Barbara Streisand’s hair, wishing I had seen more of Paris, and feeling like my natural lashes are woefully inadequate. I’ve been watching a lot of Bob’s Burgers too, sometimes with Eleanor, which leads to her singing things like this.

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]]>Back at it after a short break! First off, thank you for all of your suggestions for Christmas dinner. We borrowed a second slow cooker and made two pot roasts (using Martha’s recipe), along with smashed potatoes, veggies, and rolls. Easy and good!

I enjoyed the break by playing with the kids, filling up my watercolor sketch book, and reading. It was awesome. Plus Brandon and I finally got over to the MCA to see the David Bowie Is exhibit before it ended! Also awesome.

There will probably be a lot of manifestos out there today. A lot of reflecting on the year passed, with people setting new goals or recommitting to existing ones along with examining the reasons to leave some things behind. A new year always inspires this sort of introspection and I’ve done it too, but I haven’t felt compelled to do so this time around. I have goals of course — as I always do — but they’re of the ongoing and in motion sort and I’m happy with where I’m both personally and professionally right now. The baby is still taking up most of my time these days, but it’s baby number three for us and I’m well aware of how quickly this time passes. I’d rather snuggle him while he’s still a squishy smiley little lovey thing than make an arbitrary list of things to do because it happens to be the start of a new year.

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]]>Eleanor and August had a lot of fun decorating the tree this year. The front part at least, up to about four feet high. They kept saying “I could do this all day!” and in fact, they did. Over multiple days.

I stepped in when they were done and added ornaments to the rest of the tree, and I spaced theirs out a bit. Brandon’s mom gave us some of the ornaments she had collected over the years from when he was a kid, so those have been added to our tree now too.

I didn’t go too crazy with the decorations this year because it wasn’t easy with a baby always on my hip. There are little touches here and there throughout the house though, like on this little table in the dining room.

I also swapped out the tassel on our secretary for a soft bunny ornament decked out in red and green. It’s cute, but mostly I did it because I figured the kids would like it.

You’ve already seen the fireplace, but now our stockings have been hung from the mantel. Those gold initials were from Restoration Hardware, but it looks like they stopped carrying them this year, so I’ll have to find a ‘C’ from elsewhere that matches.

There are a lot of exciting projects and opportunities coming up for me in the next couple of months. It’s hard to juggle everything with Calvin being so little, and with Eleanor and August too, but I can’t complain. I’m planning projects for the house, responding to press inquiries that I hope will turn into something more, scheduling campaigns, and even contemplating a part-time job offer that has come along for something that I’d love to do.

Sometimes you just have to jump in and say yes.

I continue to be grateful for this blog, and I’m glad to be able to share my life, my finds, and my home with you. I’m going to take off a little time between now and the new year to spend time with Brandon, the kids, friends, and family, but I’m looking forward to meeting you back here in January. Happy holidays, everyone!

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Confession: we waited until after Thanksgiving to put our tree up, but I started bringing out the Christmas decorations for the rest of the house a couple of weeks ago! The fireplace is sporting a mix of decorations that we already owned with a few new additions from Target.

I really liked this holiday berry garland, but I used the silver ornament garland that we already owned and then added a few loose gold ornaments to fill in some bare spots. The candle holders are the same ones you saw last month in the dining room. I picked up several small and large bottle brush trees in both silver and white to add to the mantel, and further staggered the height by propping a few of the trees up on small upside-down bowls that are hidden behind the ornaments.

The brass deer are vintage. I loved decorating with them each year in the old house, so it’s fun to see them here on top of the fireplace. You can pick up this guy if you’re looking for a new deer of your own, or maybe just a small ceramic stag head for kicks?

Had the vintage painting leaning on the mantel been something more precious, I probably would have hesitated to string the “happy holidays” glitter banner across it. It may not be the greatest work of art, but I think it is the perfect backdrop for those sparkly letters! And speaking of sparkle, behold. Glitter! Gold! Silver! It’s all very merry.

Our stockings will soon be hung by the fireplace, but that isn’t the only change to come. My sister is hosting a Christmas party this year and she asked if she could borrow some decorations, so I have a feeling some of these will be moving to her apartment soon. At least I was able to enjoy this setup for a little while first! Besides, what are sisters for? (For stealing all of your cute Christmas decor, apparently. Ha!)

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There’s the smiley baby we know around here! Such a difference from last months picture. Also? Hobbes! Watterson never licensed the characters but we did find a stuffed tiger that bears a striking resemblance, so we had to pick it up for our little Calvin.

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]]>Calvin is seven weeks old, and I think we can call it now: he has been the easiest of our three babies. He rarely cries, as I can anticipate his needs and read his cues pretty well. We have the occasional bad night, but most of the time he goes to sleep around seven, wakes up to nurse once, and then sleeps again until morning. Five o’clock in the morning, but I’ll take it! He has been in a mama-only phase for the past couple of weeks so I’m not getting as much done as I’d like to, but the upside is that my days are positively filled with baby snuggles and smiles. The house is a mess and I have to do most of my typing with one hand when I work, but he’s worth it.

The only downside is that breastfeeding continues to be difficult. I think the worst of it was around four weeks (when I wrote this post), but I’d hoped we would be past the pain by now and that the early damage could heal. I indulge Calvin’s preference for me and let him sleep in my arms in part because it keeps him happy and/or asleep for longer, therefore extending the time between nursing sessions (giving me a bit of a reprieve). I wish I didn’t dread nursing so much, but it’s hard to willingly do something ten times a day that hurts. I stubbornly press on because I’m assuming it will get better and I actually like nursing when it’s no longer painful, but I wish we could get to that point soon.

I did get a half-dozen photos of him in the chair before he started crying, but I had set the camera’s focus incorrectly at first, so those were all blurry. (Way to go, me.) He’s a pretty happy baby — it’s too bad his first monthly photo doesn’t reflect that. But he is a newborn and like all newborns he tends to cry a fair amount, so I suppose it’s an accurate enough representation!